Timeless Green
by Tom Kristal
Summary: (AU/HBP) Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it you can never get it back. Or can you? Snape makes a grave mistake, but can he avoid the price?


**Timeless Green**

_By Tom Kristal_

**Standard Disclaimer: **All creative rights to the characters belong to their original creator(s) and are in no way connected with J.K. Rowling, Scholastic Books, Bloomsbury Publishing or Warner Bros. The author of the following FanFiction does not in any way profit from the story and it is written solely for entertainment purposes only. Associated names, characters, places, items, and descriptions used in the following FanFiction are the copyrights and/or trademarks of the rightful owners. Rights to characters and their settings is neither claimed nor implied.

**Rating:** (M)

**Timeless Green**

**Prologue: **_[adj]_ Inconceivable

_No one knows what its like,_

_To feel these feelings. Like I do… and I blame you!_

~ Behind Blue Eyes, The Who (Pete Townshend)

**Hogwarts Grounds - June 12 1997, 9:30pm**

_"Fight back you coward!"_

The words echoed through Severus head, like a sledgehammer pulverizing directly into his cranium.

Within an instant, he recalled all the times the father of this petulant child saw to torment him, curse him, make his life nothing but miserable, take her away from him...

Severus thought he had felt rage before. Thought he had seen the limits to his anger. But nothing before had come close to compare to this. As if his mind was in overdrive he began to think of all the things wrong with his life. Being surrounded by children he loathed in the castle that represented some of the worst memories in his young adult life, in a job that he was forced into out of obligation and guilt; the rage inside him began to build. And to top it off he thought, he had now spent years, years of his life being in continuous contact with this brat: the very bane of his existence. Doing hard-time indeed.

Quickly he was getting beyond simply blocking or venting his emotions. Normally he had an almost constant opportunities to vent out his pent-up anger on. After all there was someone else to push, someone else to blame, always something else. And to his mind at the very least he had constantly fumed and raged because quite frankly he had plenty of reasons to.

But once again he underestimated the boy... The brat. For the boy seemed to know which buttons to push, to test his barley restrained tolerance to the breaking point.

To see the hatred and accusation in his eyes, those deep green emerald eyes that he loved so much and loathed even more on that face.

Her eyes Severus.

Calling him a coward.

A coward.

Her eyes. His face.

_HOW DARE HE!_

"Don't you 'DARE' call me a coward" he raged banishing his wand at the unprepared boy who was still poorly trying to provoke a fight with him, practically broadcasting his curses at him left, right and centre. Severus didn't even think what curse he threw at him (a banishing spell he supposed) as the boy unceremoniously fell on his back sinking into the muddy dirt. In the mud, where he belonged.

How dare the boy accuse him of this.

Out of all the sacrifices he'd made.

Out of all the lost opportunities.

How he hated this boy. This arrogant, stupid boy who thought so highly of himself to think the world simply revolved around him he thought snidely. Yet in a way for Severus at the very least it was true. Every sorrowful act in his bleak existence revolved solely around this boy - this thing that didn't deserve mention; deserve gratification and appraisal.

Deserve the love that he was so cruelly denied.

He didn't deserve her eyes.

His own face, ashen white in fury slowly stalked towards the crumpled form of the bespectacled youth lying pitifully before him on the ground.

The wind picked up and the twirling of the heavy rain above beat down on them like broken nails whilst simultaneously the wind tousled Severus cloak in seemingly choreographed directions. It probably gave himself the impression of an avenging angel he amused to himself or more likely a demon.

He stood before the boy now looking crumpled and pathetic. His hands were covered in dirt and blood. His school clothes torn and singed in several places. His scar even in the bleak of darkness protruded predominantly on his forehead red and throbbing rhythmically. His black and messy ebony hair: caked in mud. Where he belonged.

And her eyes staring back at him with such overbearing hatred and defiance. They almost made him flinch with the intensity. Almost.

The boys wand laid inches from his hand where he dropped it in his fall. Even now, his right hand was desperately trying to grasp for it in the muddy grass clawing for it with his fingers and painfully shifting with his body sideways toward it. He must have broken a rib he smugly thought.

To add salt to the wounds (and for his own satisfaction) he casually rested his foot along the boys' right wrist, forcing enough pressure to circulation yet along any movement. Ignoring its silent grunt of pain in one sweeping motion he bent and picked up the dropped wand from the ground.

"Pitiful" he sneered to the boy waving around the now confiscated wand. As a gesture of power he put his own wand away still holding the holly and phoenix feather wand.

"Twenty points from Gryffindor for cursing a professor..."

"Screw you Snape" he gasped painfully, "...you betrayer... You..."

He swatted the boys wand in a sweeping motion, pushing the boy further up the steep muddy incline which they were sitting on.

"Don't talk of things you can't understand boy" I sneered derisively.

This seemed to only elevate the boy into further hysterics. "I know what I saw" he snarled back "You murdered Albus Dumbledore. The only man who ever cared for you or even believed you even capable enough to be a human being. I SAW YOU!" he shouted the last part. His echo bellowing across the valley in the thunderous silence.

Severus grimaced internally as if every word spoke from the boys mouth tore his resolve and his promise to the core.

To Albus… to Lilly...

Temporary numb he wasn't aware of the continuous diatribe from the boys' mouth that was rapidly crumbling his resolve, denting his already fragile state of mind.

"Well come on then Snape. Do it. Finish me off, like you've always wanted".

They both paused in the silence. The boy in a silent rage; Snape in sheer shock.

"What" the boy asked in an almost amused fashion. "It's not like you've never taken down a defenseless wizard or witch before".

Severous paled considerably in shock, as the brat continued

"Come on..! I know it's what you want. You can finally complete the set Snape. You can be responsible for not only the death nearly all your childhood rivals but for his devil-spawn too", he continued "…right along with that 'Mud blood' mother of mine".

Snape recoiled back as if physically punched.

"What!? You think I wouldn't find out about that Snape".

"I know what you thought of my mother. Another innocent. Another persons blood on your hands Snape. Another human being who may not have been a precious 'Pureblood'", he spat out as if it was poison in his lips "but she was kind and beautiful and powerful in her own right. Not that I would know of course, thanks to you" he mumbled off.

"And you sold them out with a smile on your face I bet. And I'm the one that got away".

Severus mind was in turmoil. He couldn't think. Couldn't understand anything beyond listening to the boys diatribe and stare into his cold, timeless green eyes. How exact they were. How cold and hateful they looked.

"…But here's the thing _Snivellus_. Here's what I don't get. I get why you killed my father. I get why you let my G...god father die. I can even partially understand Dumbledore. But why her Snape? Why her?"

_Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!_

"You disgust me Snape. Everything about you disgusts me. The way you look; the way you destroy lives; the way that everything you touch crumbles and dies Snape".

"I HATE YOU!"

In that instant he could not longer take any more; could no longer sit there and listen to the words coming from those eyes drawn like slits. So similar and yet so full of complete and utter revulsion. And all at once, all the reprimand and the guilt the misery the hate - the everlasting hate finally consumed him like a thick blanket smothering his whole body and clenching his insides as if he was going to heave. No redemption. No second chances.

Before he could blink.

Before he could even breathe. He did the unthinkable. The unforgivable…

_"Avada Kedavra!"_

_**To be continued..?**_

**Author Notes: **This was a prologue to a story I thought up ages ago and has been sitting on my computer ever since. I originally intended to write an epic story out of this; but unfortunately this is the only part truly complete. For some reason, I could never figure out a way to flesh out my ideas for the story into a structured plot. Maybe I will get to it one day (or find a beta reader able to help me complete a plot). But I'm a bit busy with a new job and exams at the moment so not in the near distant future. However I feel this chapter is almost a stand-alone in its drama which is why I finally posted this story. Hope you all enjoyed.

Just remember, FanFiction authors are paid in reviews, not in cash. Although cash would be handy (for writing more stories that is…)


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